When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the President Trump's aides and family "should stage an intervention for the good of the country" and suggested he wasn't in control of the White House on Thursday, she was deliberately trying to provoke an angry reaction from the president, people close to Pelosi tell The New York Times and The Washington Post. And provoke she did.

On Thursday afternoon, Trump lashed out at Pelosi, insisted he had been calm and angry when he walked out of a Wednesday meeting after three minutes, declared himself an "extremely stable genius," and had five aides — one of whom hadn't been in the room — attest that he had been "calm" during his brief time in the meeting.

Having aides describe him as calm during a press conference about a farm aid package is "vintage Trump," Asawin Suebsaeng and Sam Stein write at The Daily Beast: "The policy push of the day overwhelmed by internal insecurities and grievances with press coverage bursting into public view. And it underscored the degree to which his warfare with Nancy Pelosi has gone from political to psychological." If Pelosi was looking for a soft spot, they add, she struck gold:

Few recurring characterizations bother President Trump more than the (largely accurate) narrative that he has a hair-trigger temper behind the scenes, and that he can easily and frequently be sent into vulgar, sometimes volcanic hissy fits when he doesn't get his way.

In the middle of last year, Trump once sat in the White House and angrily listed various words in headlines and cable-news chyrons he'd seen recently that described his mood — "fuming," "raged," "furious," and so forth — decrying them as inaccurate reporting, according to a source who was present for this. The president sounded increasingly irate as he rattled off headline after headline, the source said, noting the irony. [The Daily Beast]

British Prime Minister Theresa May announced her resignation as Conservative Party leader on Friday morning, effective June 7. She will stay on as prime minister until her party chooses a new leader. May said she was sorry she was unable, after three attempts, to get her Brexit plan thorough Parliament. She tried to get lawmakers to compromise on Britain's European Union divorce deal, but "sadly, I have not been able to do so," she said. It will be up to the next prime minister to solve Brexit, May said, and she defended her domestic accomplishments from her nearly three years in office.

The race for her successor is open to any Tory member of Parliament, but the frontrunners include former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, and former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab. There are more than a dozen MPs who are considering a run.

The Tories will start voting on the new prime minister in the week after May steps down on June 7. MPs will narrow the pool down to two potential leaders, and Conservative Party voters will select between those two finalists.

"Yesterday, President Trump had a meeting with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi," Trevor Noah said on Thursday's Daily Show. It was supposed to be about infrastructure, "but instead of building bridges in this meeting, Trump decided to burn them down."

What really happened? "According to Chuck and Nancy, Trump came into that meeting, completely acted the fool," Noah said. "But according to Trump's very calm Twitter rant this morning, he was very chilled for the whole three minutes, and then when he stormed out, it was in a relaxed and graceful fashion. Now obviously, most people didn't believe Trump, so today he interrupted a press conference with farmers to basically ask his very objective employees to tell us all how Zen he is." He showed that spectacle.

"Say what you want about Trump, but he is truly the king of political theater," Noah said, laughing. This was so obviously planned, like "you'll see in Africa all the time. Like, some dictator will be accused of war crimes, and then he'll bring his own soldiers out as his defense." He acted that out.

So Trump "denies having a temper tantrum by having a temper tantrum," Jimmy Kimmel recapped, playing more of Trump's performance. "He's an 'extremely stable genius' — why can't people understand that? He's not a maniac. Ask his 10 terrified underlings! ... This is exactly what would have happened if we had a President Charlie Sheen."

Donald Trump Jr. is writing a book, Kimmel noted, and he had some ideas for a title: "For instance, Are You There Dad? It's Me, the Dumb One."

At The Late Show, Stephen Colbert suggested "The Art of the Douche" as the "working title" for Don Jr.'s book. He also noted that Trump is officially launching his re-election campaign on June 16, Fathers Day: "Evidently, he thinks he's America's father, which explains why he only loves a third of us." Watch below.

President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are in a public spat, following Wednesday's very short infrastructure meeting that Pelosi called a Trump "temper tantrum" on Thursday and Trump insisted wasn't, asking five totally objective aides to vouch for him. Trump called Pelosi a "mess" and "crazy," saying she's "not the same person" while he's an "extremely stable genius." Pelosi responded:

When the "extremely stable genius" starts acting more presidential, I'll be happy to work with him on infrastructure, trade and other issues. https://t.co/tfWVkj9CLT

But Trump's suggestion that Pelosi, 79 — six years older than himself — is getting too old for her job seems part of a larger campaign. It was a main theme Thursday night on Laura Ingraham's Fox News program and Lou Dobbs' show on Fox Business — Trump tweeted a Dobbs clip featuring selectively edited video of Pelosi, plus GOP strategist Ed Rollins saying Pelosi appears addled by age. Trump loyalist Corey Lewandowski was also on Dobbs, alluding to a different, doctored video of Pelosi spreading around the internet. Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani tweeted, then deleted, that video Thursday night, with the comment: "What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi? Her speech pattern is bizarre."

It isn't clear who originally manipulated the Pelosi video, now widely viewed and shared on social media, but The Washington Post and outside researchers determined the video was slowed to about 75 percent of its original speed, then edited so Pelosi's voice is roughly the right pitch.

"The altered video's dissemination highlights the subtle way that viral misinformation could shape public perceptions in the run-up to the 2020 election," the Post warns. "Even simple, crude manipulations can be used to undermine an opponent or score political points."

For months, President Trump has repeatedly and aggressively urged the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Department of Homeland Security officials to award border wall contracts to Fisher Industries, a North Dakota construction company whose CEO frequently appears on Fox News to pitch his wall-building skills, The Washington Post reports, citing four administration officials and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a Fisher friend and advocate.

Trump's "push for a specific company has alarmed military commanders and DHS officials," the Post says, given "decades-old procurement rules that require government agencies to seek competitive bids, free of political interference." Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the Army Corps, and former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen separately explained to Trump that he can't just pick a company, the Post reports, but "Fisher was added to a pool of competitors after the Army Corps came under pressure from the White House."

Fisher CEO Tommy Fisher has said on Fox News and other conservative outlets that he can build barrier wall faster and cheaper using a new technique his company is showcasing in New Mexico, where it's building a half-mile of border fence on private land using crowdsourced funds. Trump reportedly repeats Fisher's claims.

DHS rejected the concrete border wall prototype Fisher built, and Fisher switched to promoting a steel design. Army Corps officials evaluated Fisher's new proposal and determined it doesn't meet the project's requirements, lacked regulatory approval, and cost less because it wasn't as high-quality as competing bids, the Post reports. Also, a barrier project Fisher did in San Diego was late and over-budget, DHS told the Army Corps. Fisher sued the government in late April.

"The president is one of the country's most successful builders and knows better than anyone how to negotiate the best deals," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the Post. Cramer said Trump learned about the company from Tommy Fisher's Fox News appearances. "He always brings them up," he said.

The 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are split on whether to appear on Fox News, and on Tuesday night, The Daily Show's Trevor Noah explained the advantages they can reap from going on the generally unfriendly network. On Wednesday's Full Frontal, Daily Show alumna Samantha Bee offered a counterpoint.

Yes, Mayor Pete Buttigieg got "a touching reception for a candidate on a network that doesn't believe his sexual orientation entitles him to a wedding cake," Bee said, but really, this isn't that complicated. "You do not have to go on Fox News."

"Yes, there are some benefits to crossing the media aisle to try to reach new voters," Bee said. "And it's great to talk to as many voters as possible, but where you talk to them matters. As Elizabeth Warren put it as she refused to appear on the network, Fox News is a 'hate-for-profit racket' — which, in all fairness, would make it the first profitable racket Donald Trump has ever been involved in."

"In its entire history, Fox News was never on the level, but in the Trump era, the network has become an extension of his administration , or maybe vice versa — they don't pretend otherwise, so why should anyone else?" Bee asked. "At a certain point, if you play along with Fox, you don't look principled or bipartisan — you just look stupid. Nobody is impressed by how Charlie Brown reaches across the aisle to Lucy's football."

"If you're sure that going on Fox is strategically the right thing to do, I guess go for it," Bee said. "But I am sure that it is not morally the right thing to do. When you go on Fox News, no matter how lit your town hall game is that night, you are legitimizing them. ... And if you do go on, they're just going to take you out of context anyway." Watch Fox News twisting Buttigieg below.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) declared victory on Thursday as early results from India's six-week-long election showed it headed toward a landslide win over the main opposition Congress party and powerful regional parties. Full results aren't expected until Thursday night or later, but partial results have BJP ahead in more than 300 of 542 seats in the lower house of Parliament, and if Modi's party ended up with at least 272 seats, he can govern in his second term without a coalition; BJP won 282 seats in 2014. Congress is ahead in fewer than 100 seats. More than 600 million people voted in the elections.

The election was widely viewed as a referendum on Modi, a polarizing but charismatic figure who is adept at using social media but is blamed for increasing ethnic and religious divisions in India. The country's economy has been underperforming in the past few years, but Modi focused on national security during the campaign, a major topic amid skirmishes with Pakistan in Kashmir.

"Backed by enormous resources, the BJP's organizational machinery, employing all modern methods of communication, is now difficult to beat," writes BBC News correspondent Soutik Biswas. If Congress wants to recover, it will have to work harder and "build an alternative narrative to take on the BJP's campaign, which deftly combined nationalism, development, and religious polarization."

Residents of Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Iowa, and Nebraska reported at least 80 tornadoes since Monday, with at least 22 tornado reports by late Wednesday, including a "violent tornado" in Jefferson City, Missouri, that may have caused fatalities. At least seven people have been reported dead from storm-related causes, mostly in Missouri, ABC News reports. And days of heavy rains have caused near-record flooding in the Midwest, especially Oklahoma, where 9 inches of rain have fallen on saturated ground since Sunday.

The Arkansas River is 9 feet above flood stage in parts of Oklahoma, and two barges that broke away in the flood prompted evacuation orders for several small towns on the other side of a dam downstream. The Missouri and Mississippi Rivers are at or approaching flood stages from Iowa and Illinois down to Missouri — the Mississippi is expected to crest 12 feet vote flood stage in St. Louis on Monday. And the rain-swollen Cimarron River is eating away its banks toward homes about 34 miles north of Oklahoma City.

In fact, at least one unoccupied house slipped into the Cimarron on Tuesday and floated away. Others are at risk of sliding into the river, too.

The extreme weather is expected to linger in the Plains states Thursday but part of the storm will head east, delivering heavy rain, strong wind gusts, hail, and tornados to parts of the East Coast, from New England to West Virginia.

President Trump said Wednesday he won't work with Democrats on infrastructure or anything else until they end their investigations of him. "You're on the Senate Intelligence Committee," Stephen Colbert reminded Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) on Wednesday's Late Show. "Are you guys going to end the investigation?" "No," she said. "Let's just talk for a moment about this."

So Trump's "going to hold America's infrastructure hostage over the issue of the investigation," Harris said, connecting some dots. Almost half of American families are about $400 of unexpected expenses away from "complete upheaval," she said. The average set of tires for a car costs $400, she added, and "why do people need new tires? Because the roads are falling apart." Colbert played the devil's advocate, suggesting Democrats "just pause the investigations and get the infrastructure done — he'll still be corrupt later." Harris laughed but said, "No, this is a false choice. We cannot abandon our democracy for the sake of appeasing somebody who is completely focused on his self-interest only."

Harris said it's her "firm belief" that Trump obstructed justice, but impeachment is tricky. She's in favor of starting an impeachment investigation, she said, but "it is also fair that we are realistic that the Senate is not going to impeach this guy." The investigation is still worth pursuing, Harris added. "It's about maintaining the integrity of our democracy and the design of it," three co-equal branches of government with checks and balances. But when the Senate fails to convict, she said, Democrats must be ready to watch Trump "prance around and say, 'See? Witch hunt, witch hunt. They went after me and they didn't get me.'" "I've never imagined him prancing before," Colbert said, "but thank you for that image."

Harris also explained how her equal-pay plan shifts the burden of assuring men and women earn the same money for the same work from individuals to the companies. Watch below.

If you've paid any attention to President Trump, you know he's obsessed with golf and he golfs a lot. HuffPost tried to discern what Trump's roughly 175 president golf trips have cost in added travel and security costs, and on Wednesday they reported their conservative estimate: $102 million. That includes $81 million for his 61 days at his golf courses in Florida, $17 million for his 58 days at his New Jersey resort, $1 million for him to visit his club in Los Angeles, and $3 million to tack a trip to his Scottish golf course onto a visit to London. A planned golf trip to Ireland will cost millions more.

For perspective, HuffPost says, $102 million "represents 255 times the annual presidential salary he volunteered not to take," and former President Barack Obama at this point in his presidency had racked up about $30 million in out-of-town golf expenses.

A HuffPost investigation has revealed that President Donald Trump’s love of golf is costing taxpayers a lot of green. pic.twitter.com/29Dw4kKTW9

At The Washington Examiner, Tom Rogan scolds HuffPost for "hyperventilating" about Trump's golf expenses, noting, reasonably, that president need vacations and have to travel with large, expensive entourages "Too many conservative commentators unjustly attacked Obama's travel costs," he said, and "liberals are wrong to complain about President Trump's golfing costs."

But cost was only part of HuffPost's concerns. All but one of Trump's 175 golf outings have been at Trump-owned courses — the exception was in Japan — and "on top of the publicity value of a presidential visit, each trip also results in many thousands of taxpayer dollars flowing to Trump resorts for hotel rooms, golf carts, and food and drink for Secret Service agents," HuffPost notes. "Because Trump continues to profit from these businesses ... a portion of that taxpayer money ends up in Trump's own pocket." A recent government report found that Trump's Mar-a-Lago earned about $60,000 from just four of Trump's 24 presidential visits. Read more at HuffPost.

"Today, there really is just one big story: America's step-daddy is angry," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. Frustrated Democrats are starting to push for impeachment, and after a meeting Wednesday morning to calm down her caucus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) emerged and said she believes Trump "is engaged in a cover-up." Colbert laughed: "It's called bronzer, Nancy, and he's not fooling anyone."

Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) then went to the White House to meet with Trump for a pre-scheduled meeting on infrastructure, Trump walked in late, walked out, and the meeting was over in three minutes. "According to Stormy Daniels, that's two bonus minutes," Colbert said, naughtily. "Trump walked out the door, straight to the Rose Garden for a nationally televised hissy fit, complete with a podium adorned with a pre-printed sign that said 'No collusion, no obstruction.'"

"So Trump has a clear stance on infrastructure: 'It's my way or no highways,'" Colbert said, paraphrasing Trump's opening message. Trump then claimed Democrats can't investigate him and legislate at the same time, raged about Democrats moving toward "the 'i' word," insisted he's denying Congress its constitutional powers for altruistic reasons, and stood up for his son Don Jr, Colbert recapped. Then Pelosi politely savaged Trump, but couldn't quite articulate "the 'i' word."

The Late Show had no trouble finding (and singing about) "i" words to describe Trump.

"Trump's press conference was predictably off-the-rails," starting with his "obvious lie" that he's a historically transparent president, Seth Meyer said at Late Night. "I mean, we can see right though you, but I don't think that's what you meant." With Trump "now openly defying the law and refusing to work with Congress unless they stop investigating him," he added, "it's worth remembering that Republicans spent years pretending to care about the Constitution, and now Trump is exposing them all as frauds." Well, all except one. Watch below.

One of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) arguments against opening impeachment proceedings against President Trump is that House Democrats are actually winning their oversight battles with the White House. And in fact, a second federal judge green-lighted congressional subpoenas of Trump's financial records on Wednesday, and two of Trump's lenders — Wells Fargo and TD Bank — have reportedly already handed over some financial records.

On the other hand, Trump's lawyers plan to appeal the rulings on his Deutsche Bank, Capital One, and accounting records, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has refused to hand over Trump's tax returns, despite a law that says he "shall," a subpoena, and a memo from IRS lawyers agreeing he has little choice. New York may have just given House Democrats a workaround on Trump's tax returns, though.

On Wednesday, the New York state Assembly and Senate gave final approval to a law that would allow three congressional committees — House Ways and Means, Senate Banking, and Joint Committee on Taxation — to request the state tax returns of any elected or top appointed official. It covers both business and personal tax returns filed in the state. New York is Trump's home and the headquarters of many of his core businesses, and the information on his state returns should be very similar to what's on his federal returns.

If Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signs the legislation — a spokesman said he is reviewing it carefully — it will take effect immediately. That would probably provide House Democrats their fastest path to viewing Trump's tax returns — though the law, like all the other avenues, might have to overcome a court challenge first.

Sixty-five percent isn't out of the realm of possibility for most presidents, but Trump has never risen above 46 percent in Gallup's tracking poll (he's now at 42 percent). It isn't clear what Trump hoped to accomplish with this tweet, which appears to say a quarter of the electorate is either gullible or stupid, and Trump doesn't say which polls he's objecting to, though several fit the bill.

A CBS News poll released Wednesday notched Trump's approval rating at a moderately high 41 percent, but a Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday put Trump 19 points under water, with 38 percent of voters approving and 57 percent disapproving. And as Harry Enten pointed out on CNN Wednesday morning, 54 percent of voters in that poll said they would definitely vote against Trump in 2020, putting him in an unwanted league of his own.

In the CBS News poll, 71 percent of Americans say the economy is good, and 50 percent of them approve of Trump's handling of the economy, his highest number. His numbers on everything else — trade, foreign policy, immigration — are considerably worse. It's hard to blame that on the "Witch Hunt."

On Monday, the Republican majority in Tennessee's state House voted 45-24 in favor of a historic vote of no confidence in House Speaker Glen Casada (R), following a series of scandals including sexually explicit text messages about women he exchanged with his male former chief of staff. Casada said he won't resign. In neighboring Mississippi on Tuesday, it was House Speaker Philip Gunn (R) who called for the resignation of a member of his caucus, Rep. Doug McLeod (R), arrested on Saturday on allegations he punched his wife because she didn't undress quickly enough when he wanted to have sex.

"I have attempted to contact Rep. McLeod to request his resignation, if in fact, these allegations are true," Gunn said in a statement. "These actions are unacceptable for anyone."

According to a report from the George County Sheriff's Department, when deputies knocked on McLeod's door in Lucedale on Saturday night, the lawmaker was visibly drunk and holding an alcoholic drink. When they said they were there responding to reports of a domestic assault, the deputies reported, McLeod said, "Are you kidding me?" The report says McLeod's wife had a bloodied nose and there was blood on the bed and bedroom floor, and a second woman told the deputies she had locked herself and the wife in her room after the incident, McLeod had pounded on the door, and when she refused to open it, he had threatened to "kill her [expletive] dog."

McLeod, arrested on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, "is free on bail," and "he didn't immediately respond to requests for comment," The Associated Press reports. "The 58-year-old McLeod has represented George and Stone counties since 2012. He's unopposed for re-election this year."

Beto O'Rourke has spent the first two months of his presidential campaign driving around Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, interacting with voters at more than 150 town halls, or up to three a day. On Tuesday, before his first televised town hall on CNN, O'Rourke said he wasn't bothered that his local, meet-and-greet campaign has been rewarded with shrinking poll numbers. "In terms of the assessment, who the hell knows this far out from the first caucuses or elections," he said. But a big goal of his CNN town hall, at Drake University in Des Moines, was to reintroduce himself to a national audience.

O'Rourke's town hall experience showed, said Politico's David Siders. "Though he's slumped in polls, his performance served as a reminder of why O’Rourke was able to galvanize Democrats in his near-upset of Sen. Ted Cruz last year. He has an uncommon command of a stage — and an increasingly precise policy platform."

O'Rourke backed legalizing marijuana, universal gun-purchase background checks, and a ban on selling "weapons of war." He promised that as president, he would ensure "every nominee to every federal bench, including the Supreme Court, understands and believes the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land." And he endorsed immediate impeachment proceedings against President Trump, looking past any "short-term consequences to the consequences to the future of this country."

"If we do nothing because we are afraid of the polls or the politics or the repercussions in the next election, then we will have set a precedent for this country that in fact, some people, because of the position of power or public trust that they hold, are above the law," O'Rourke said. "We cannot let that precedent stand. There must be consequences, accountability, and justice. The only way to ensure that is to begin impeachment proceedings." Watch him tackle impeachment and two other issues below.

The Democratic presidential field is split over whether to sit down for interviews on Fox News, a news network that has a decidedly anti-Democrat slant. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) are on the no side, Trevor Noah said on Tuesday's Daily Show, but Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) got a warm welcome and appeared to win people over in his town hall, and on Sunday night, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg slammed Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson — and got a standing ovation from the Fox News audience.

"Pete Buttigieg went on Fox News, trashed their most popular anchors, and then got a standing ovation at the end — that is amazing," Noah said. "Because if someone came to your house and told you how ugly your kids were, you'd probably be like, 'Get the hell out of here!' You wouldn't be like: 'Someone had to say it. You've got a big-a-- head, Billy. ... Some reporters on Fox News actually credited Buttigieg for coming on to their network. But, the kids with the big-a-- heads? They weren't as happy."

Noah didn't have a pat answer on whether Democrats should go on Fox New or stay away. "In many ways, it's just like eating an Oreo," he said. And that ended in a profane Ben Carson takedown. Watch below.

"Congress might finally get a look at the president's finances, even though he very much doesn't want that to happen," Jimmy Kimmel said on Tuesday's Kimmel Live. A federal judge upheld a House subpoena for Trump's records from his accounting firm on Monday, and while Trump has appealed the decision, "this is the best," Kimmel said: "The judge who might preside over that appeal is none other than Merrick Garland, the guy whose Supreme Court seat got squatted by Republicans in Congress."

"How perfect is that?" Kimmel asked. "Keep your fingers crossed. That's like if Donald and Melania renewed their vows, and the minister was Stormy Daniels." At a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday night, Trump "took shots at Joe Biden, the Oscars, Fox News, and even the lighting on stage," saying he prefers the sun to artificial lights, Kimmel said. "This, by the way, is coming from a man who sleeps in a tanning bed," he noted. But "he's right, the lights are very bright — maybe they should be president for a little while."

Kimmel also caught up on some crumbs from last week, namely Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) much-ridiculed warning about "space pirates." "Just when you think Ted Cruz can't get any weirder, he goes and becomes a Scientologist on us," Kimmel joked. But he took the remark seriously to create a trailer for Space Force 2, featuring, of course, space pirates.

The Late Show mocked Cruz last week, with some traditional space pirate shanties. Watch below.

President Trump has decided to hire former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II in a new role coordinating immigration policy out of the Department of Homeland Security, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported Tuesday night. Cuccinelli is an immigration hardliner, but it isn't clear what his role will be at DHS. He will report to acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, but he will also regularly brief Trump at the White House, the Post reports, and his duties will overlap with McAleenan's responsibilities.

Before her ouster, former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen had pushed Trump to create an immigration czar position at the White House to coordinate the many federal agencies that handle immigration. "Putting an immigration czar at DHS is a total waste," a former DHS official told the Post. Others predicted conflict with McAleenan, who unlike Cuccinnelli, is broadly respected by Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. McAleenan was reportedly at the Oval Office meeting on Monday where Trump offered Cuccinelli the job.

Cuccinelli was tapped after former acting Immigrations and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan turned Trump down, the Post reports. He beat out former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, whom Trump soured on in part because of a list of 10 demands Kobach reportedly handed the White House. "Cuccinelli, who has been hawkish on immigration policy during television appearances that also praise Trump, appears to fulfill the president's desire to have a forceful personality and a loyalist at the highest levels of DHS," the Post says.

But his chance of advancement is limited, the Post adds. "Cuccinelli is deeply disliked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has vowed to block Cuccinelli from any Senate-confirmed post for leading efforts in 2014 backing insurgent candidates that hurt the Senate GOP majority," and he's "even less popular with Democrats."

At a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday night, President Trump went after former Vice President Joe Biden, who — according to public and apparently internal Trump campaign polling — is beating Trump in the Keystone State. "He's not from Pennsylvania," Trump said of Biden, who lived in Scranton until age 10. "I guess he was born here, but he left you folks. He left you for another state. Remember that, please."

Stephen Colbert's Late Show turned that into a mock Trump attack ad.

But Biden appeared to take the slight more seriously. "I've never forgotten where I came from," he wrote on Twitter. "My family did have to leave Pennsylvania when I was 10 — we moved to Delaware where my Dad found a job that could provide for our family."

And he doesn’t understand that the longest walk a parent can make is up a short flight of stairs to their child’s bedroom to say, honey, I'm sorry. We have to move. You can’t go back to your school. You won’t see your friends because Daddy or Mommy lost their job.

The latest blow in the oversight fight between President Trump and Congress was former White House Counsel Don McGahn ignoring a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee, Stephen Colbert explained on Tuesday's Late Show. "They wanted to ask McGahn about the section of the Mueller report where McGahn says Trump tried to obstruct justice — and it's a large section — but last night the White House blocked McGahn from testifying to Congress. So, they don't get to ask about obstruction, because the alleged obstructer obstructed the witness to his obstructing."

House Democrats, who scolded McGahn's empty chair on Tuesday, are not happy. "But there's some good news on the obstruction front," Colbert said. On Monday, a federal judge upheld a different House subpoena for Trump's financial records from his accounting firm. "That's huge — we are finally getting his financial records, and I have a strong feeling that we're going to find out that the whole time, Eric was just a shell corporation," he joked. Trump criticized the ruling and the judge, and Colbert recapped in Trump voice: "You can't trust an Obama-appointed judge. Take it from me, a Putin-appointed president."

"Trump promised to appeal this decision — and now comes the fun part," Colbert said. "Because the case is going to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is headed by .... drumroll please ... Judge Merrick Garland." In case you forgot, he said, "Merrick Garland is the judge Obama nominated to the Supreme Court in 2016, only to have his appointment shot down by Mitch McConnell. Now that guy's court gets to rule on Trump's financial records." Ha, "payback's a Mitch," Colbert said, adding, quietly and probably correctly, "I'm sure he'll be evenhanded."

"Thankfully, one member of the Trump administration actually did show up in Congress today," Colbert said, and what we learned from HUD Secretary Ben Carson "is that in two years, he has learned nothing about this own agency."

It's not clear what kind of shape Black's love life was in, but if Warren can set it in order while doing her day job of being a U.S. senator and also running for president on the side, fixing military housing should be a snap.

On Monday night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) fended off several calls to start impeachment inquiries against President Trump, The Washington Post and Politico report. At a closed-door leadership meeting, at least five members of Pelosi's leadership team pressed her to authorize impeachment hearings, arguing that starting the impeachment process would strengthen their hand in the heated legal fight with Trump's White House over documents and witness testimony. Later, Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) reportedly made his case to Pelosi to start impeachment proceedings.

Pelosi was not persuaded. Her main arguments, according to people in or familiar with the meetings, were that the majority of House Democrats aren't in favor of impeachment yet, that it would further distract from the economic and social case Democrats are trying to make, that impeachment is divisive, that the courts are siding with Democrats against Trump, and that impeachment hearings would undercut the five other House committees investigating Trump, leaving everything in the Judiciary Committee. "You want to tell Elijah Cummings to go home?" Pelosi asked, referring to the House Oversight Committee chairman.

The pro-impeachment Democrats, including former law professor Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), argued that starting an impeachment inquiry would streamline the many Trump investigations and give Democrats more robust subpoena powers, and it wouldn't necessarily lead to an impeachment vote or trial. Nadler said "the president's continuing lawless conduct is making it harder and harder to rule out impeachment or any other enforcement mechanism." Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) confirmed to Politico that he pointed out that House Republicans launched immediate impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton "over sex," while Trump is "raping the country."

Former White House Counsel Don McGahn made it official: He will be a no-show at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, defying a subpoena and threats of enforcement from House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). In a letter to Nadler, McGahn's lawyer cites Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel's "detailed and persuasive" memo on why McGahn should say no, and the stated wishes of McGahn's "former client," President Trump.

There are other reasons that may be factoring in McGahn's decision, too. "If McGahn were to defy Trump and testify before Congress, it could endanger his own career in Republican politics and put his law firm, Jones Day, in the president's crosshairs," The Washington Post notes. "Trump has mused about instructing Republicans to cease dealing with the firm, which is deeply intertwined in Washington with the GOP." In fact, according to a new Federal Election Commission filing itemized by ProPublica, the Republican National Committee's top expense in April was $2 million for "legal and compliance services" to Jones Day, out of $14.3 million total spending last month.

Trump's motives are more clear. "Trump has fumed about McGahn for months, after it became clear that much of Mueller’s report was based on his testimony," the Post reports. "The president has bashed his former White House counsel on Twitter and has insisted to advisers that the attorney not be allowed to humiliate him in front of Congress, much as his former personal legal fixer Michael Cohen did."

Previous administrations have also held that close presidential advisers like the White House counsel are immune from compelled congressional testimony about their White House work, though a federal judge disagreed in 2008, the Post reports, ruing that former White House Counsel Harriet Miers had to at least show up to congressional hearings.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo was declared official winner of April's presidential election early Tuesday, beating former Gen. Prabowo Subianto, 55.5 percent to 45.5 percent. Subianto, an authoritarian nationalist who had aligned himself with Islamic hard-liners, refused to concede, telling reporters he will "continue to make legal efforts in line with the constitution to defend the mandate of the people and the constitutional rights that were seized." Independent observers said the election appeared free and fair.

Widodo also beat Subianto in the 2014 election, and Subianto lost his challenge of those results before Indonesia's Constitutional Court. About 32,000 security personnel were dispatched around Jakarta, the capital, on Tuesday in anticipation of protests from Subianto's supporters, and the Election Commission's headquarters was under heavy guard behind razor wire.

Widodo, a 57-year-old relative moderate from humble beginnings, was governor of Jakarta before winning his first five-year term. Subianto, 67, was formerly married to the daughter of longtime Indonesian dictator Suharto, and though he is closely linked to the country's traditional political elite, he ran as an outsider.

"The biggest TV event of the weekend, of course, was all about the brutal struggle for power and warring houses — of course I'm talking about Pete Buttigieg on Fox News," Stephen Colbert joked on Monday's Late Show. "Mayor Pete sat down with Chris Wallace, and Wallace pressed him on how Buttigieg is going to respond to [President] Trump's attacks." The Late Show audience clapped, but Colbert himself was less impressed. "I'm so happy for you, Mayor Pete, that you don't have to care about Trump's tweets," he said, slow-clapping sideways. "Unlike you, some of us need to read them out loud every night just to feed our families."

Buttigieg was right about Trump's "grotesque" tweets, however, and he criticized Fox News hosts but not Fox News viewers, Colbert said. Still, one prominent Fox News viewer "rage-tweeted before the town hall even started." Colbert read Trump's tweets, presumably to feed his family. Trump appeared jealous at Wallace's praise of Buttigieg's "substance" and "biography," and Colbert responded in Trump voice: "Come on, Chris, anything Mayor Pete can do, I can do better. I can marry a guy. I'll marry two guys, then leave them both for a younger, hotter guy."

Colbert also hit on some good news: Billionaire Robert F. Smith's surprise offer to pay off the student debt of Morehouse College's graduating seniors. "Class of 2019, you just learned a valuable lesson: Sucks to be the Class of 2018," he said. "You know there's somebody in that crowd of graduates going, 'Aren't you happy it took me five years to graduate now, Dad?'" Less happy was Colbert: "As someone who frequently gets asked to give commencement speeches, I have just one thing to say to Robert F. Smith: What are you doing, man?" Watch below.

The Game of Thrones series finale drew a record number of viewers to HBO on Sunday night, and not all of them left satisfied. On Monday night, the late-night shows bade farewell to the cultishly beloved drama in their own unique ways, some more elaborate than others. There are few, if any, spoilers.

At Jimmy Kimmel Live, Kimmel showed a sneak peek of one of the secretive Game of Thrones spinoffs HBO is promising, this one starring Bob Saget and Dave Coulier in their Full House roles, with a twist.

Colbert's Late Show started off with a little fan fiction about Jaime Lannister.

On Conan, a super fan dressed as a Game of Thrones character complained that the current season of Wahlburgers was terrible, and he made Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter act out a very GoT-y scene of his own fan fiction.

Trevor Noah noted at The Daily Show that some fans are taking the finale so hard, a website is "offering therapy sessions for people upset about the ending of Game of Thrones. And let me just say, people, if you need therapy because a TV show ended, your life is too good, okay? I'm just going to tell you straight, you don't need a therapist, you need some credit card debt and an STD."

"Watching Game of Thrones is kind of like running a marathon," James Corden mused at The Late Late Show. "Even if you chose not to take part, you're still forced to listen to people at work talk about it forever." He joked that sadly, millions or people are discovering their friendship was based only on a shared HBO password, and "now if you want to watch dozens of odd characters scheme for power, you'll need to start following the 2020 Democratic race."

The Golden State Warriors eked out a 119-117 overtime win over Portland on Monday, sweeping the Trail Blazers 4 games to 0 in the NBA Western Conference finals. Monday's win sends the Warriors to their fifth consecutive NBA Finals. They have a week to rest before facing either the Toronto Raptors or the Milwaukee Bucks, and they hope to have one or both injured stars, Kevin Durant or Andre Iguodala, back in the game by then. The Bucks lead the Eastern Conference series 2-1, and Game 4 is Tuesday.

Warriors guard Stephen Curry and Draymond Green became the first teammates in NBA history to each get triple-doubles in a playoff game — Curry had 37 points, 12 rebounds, 11 assists; Green, 18 points, 14 rebounds, 11 assists. The Blazers were playing in their first conference finals since 2000.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., handed House Democrats their first legal victory Monday in their fight to obtain President Trump's financial records, in this case from Trump's accounting firm Mazars USA. "It is simply not fathomable," Judge Amit Mehta wrote, "that a Constitution that grants Congress the power to remove a president for reasons including criminal behavior would deny Congress the power to investigate him for unlawful conduct — past or present — even without formally opening an impeachment inquiry." Mehta gave Trump a week to appeal, and Trump said he will do so.

The next legal battle involves a subpoena from the House Financial Services Committee for Trump's business and personal financial records from Deutsche Bank and Capital One. U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos in Manhattan is hearing Trump's motion to block that subpoena on Wednesday, and House lawyers quickly reminded Ramos that Mehta had just rejected "a substantially similar challenge by President Trump."

NEW: That was fast.

Counsel for the House Committees informed the SDNY judge that Trump just lost his similar challenge in the District of D.C.

Ramos will be hearing Trump's request for a preliminary injunction, a step Mehta skipped, but Trump's basic legal argument is broadly similar in both cases: Congress is inappropriately investigating Trump's personal finances, without any legitimate legislative reason. If Ramos allows the subpoena, Trump's lawyers wrote last week, "nonstop investigations into the personal lives of presidents" will become "the new normal."

"We have been waiting with bated breath and it's finally happened, the thing we've all been waiting for: A Republican finally read the Mueller report," Stephen Colbert said on Monday's Late Show. That's not great for President Trump. Over the weekend, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) "read the redacted Mueller report and became the first Republican to say Trump 'engaged in impeachable conduct,'" he explained.

"So with that, I would like to offer the Republican Party this apology," Colbert said: "Now I know I give the GOP a hard time and often imply that you're a spineless group of self-interested toadies who'd rather see the country destroyed than stand up to an out-of-control narcissistic toddler. I was wrong — about one of you."

"Some say Amash has now made the calls for Trump's impeachment 'bipartisan,'" Colbert said, skeptically. "Well, yeah, technically. Like, technically, in high school once we had a girl at our Dungeons & Dragons party, but doesn't mean it was coed." Zero Republicans have joined Amash, and Colbert singled out Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) for shunning courage and then mocked Trump for publicizing Amash's impeachment comments; he even sang a song about Amash in Trump voice. "If Trump didn't tweet about it, Amash would be a Page 3 news story, like war with Iran," he said.

"Speaking of which, up until now, Trump has been the voice of reason on Iran," Colbert said, acting disoriented by his own words. Well, that ended on Sunday. Watch below.

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, spoke with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace at a town hall event in New Hampshire on Sunday, and he didn't shy away from criticizing the network and its pundits. He singled out prime-time pundits Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham for remarks about immigrants. "There is a reason why anyone has to swallow hard and think twice about participating in this media ecosystem," Buittigieg said. "Even though some of those hosts are not there in good faith, I think a lot of people tune into this network who do it in good faith."

Trump had criticized Fox News, Wallace, and Buttigieg before the town hall, and Wallace asked Buttigieg how he plans to handle Trump's tweets and insults. "The tweets are ... I don't care," he said, to applause. Trump's twitter feed is very effective at grabbing the media's attention, he added. "It is the nature of grotesque things that you can't look away."

Responding to a question about restrictive new abortion laws, Buttigieg said he believes "the right of a woman to make her own decisions about her own reproductive health and her own body is a national right, I believe it is an American freedom." He said abortions in the third trimester should remain legal, too. "If it's that late in your pregnancy, then it's almost — by definition — you've been expecting to carry it to term," he said. "We're talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name, women who have purchased a crib, and families that then get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime," which "forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice. ... That decision is not going to be made any better medically or morally because the government is dictating how that decision should be made."

The crowd sent Buttigieg off with rousing applause. "Wow, a standing ovation," Wallace said, apparently surprised.

Volodymyr Zelensky, a comic actor with no political experience who played an accidental Ukrainian president on TV, was sworn in as president on Monday. During his inauguration ceremony, Zelensky announced he is "dissolving the Verkhovna Rada," or parliament, setting up snap elections. Parliamentary elections had been scheduled for October, but Zelensky campaigned on cleaning out parliament of lawmakers he accused of corruption and self-enrichment. "People must come to power who will serve the public," he said on Monday.

Zelensky, 41, crushed outgoing President Petro Poroshenko in last month's presidential runoff election, earning 73 percent of the vote. In his inaugural address, Zelensky said his top priority is ending the five-year-old conflict with Russian-back separatists in Eastern Ukraine. "I'm ready to do everything so that our heroes don't die there," he said. "I'm ready to lose my popularly and, if necessary, I'm ready to lose my post so that we have peace." Zelensky gave his address in Ukrainian, but he switched to Russian to express his conviction "that for this dialogue to start, we must see the return of all Ukrainian prisoners."

Zelensky has released few details of his governing agenda, but he laid out a broad vision for Ukraine in his address. "We must become Icelanders in football, Israelis in defending our land, Japanese in technology," he said, and "Swiss in our ability to live happily with each other, despite any differences." Although he was trained as a lawyer before becoming a TV star, Zelensky gave a nod to his fame as a comedian. "Throughout all of my life, I tried to do everything to make Ukrainians laugh," he said. "In the next five years I will do everything so that Ukrainians don't cry."

The Trump administration is going to start unveiling its long-promised Israeli-Palestinian peace plan at a June 25-26 economic "workshop" in Bahrain, the White House announced Sunday. The conference, involving finance ministers and business executives, is being described as Phase 1 of the peace initiative, with the second part, dealing with difficult political solutions that have thwarted earlier peace attempts, being rolled out later this year.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will lead the U.S. delegation with Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law. Kushner and Trump's Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt have worked on the plan for two years.

The goal of June's conference is to secure tens of billions of dollars from wealthy Gulf Arab states and donors in Europe and Asia. The reported target of $68 billion would go toward infrastructure, industry, and government reform in the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon. "Just as they have done in their sometimes highly leveraged real estate businesses," The New York Times says, Trump and Kushner "hope to use other people's money to achieve their goals. The vast bulk of the funds they hope to generate as part of the plan would come from other nations, not the United States."

Middle East experts cast doubt on the efficacy of putting the economic carrots in front of the political thorns. Israel, whose government has only taken a harder line against Palestinians since the last election, is expected to send its finance minister. The Palestinian Authority, which has ruled out the Trump administration acting as peace brokers due to its pro-Israel leanings and actions, is not expected to send anybody. On Sunday, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the conference "futile," since "any economic plan without political horizons will lead nowhere," and any political plan that doesn't "include a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital" is a nonstarter.

John Oliver used his last Game of Thrones lead-in to discuss death. "Specifically, this story is about the people who investigate deaths when they happen," he explained on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. "And if you're thinking, 'I don't want to see that on TV,' are you completely sure about that? Because death investigators aren't just supporting characters on some of the most popular shows."

"In real life, every year about 2.8 million Americans die," Oliver said, and while doctors identify cause of death on most death certificates, "if someone dies under suspicious or unnatural circumstances, their body may be sent for further examination and possibly a forensic autopsy. That's what happens to about a half a million bodies each year, and those investigations are incredibly important. A death certificate isn't like a degree from USC — it actually means something." Autopsies are important in murder investigations, but they also highlight trends in drug deaths, help identify defective products, and warn of infectious disease outbreaks.

"So tonight, let's learn about our death investigation system, specifically how it works, why it's such a mess, and what we can do about it," Oliver said. First, medical examiners and coroners aren't synonymous — medical examiners must be doctors, coroners are often elected, with shockingly few qualifications. That's "frankly weird enough," he said, but "in some jurisdictions, the coroner is also the county sheriff, and that has led to some serious problems."

The medical examiner system is better, but there are problems there, too, Oliver said. "The resources crunch is so bad that some offices wind up outsourcing work to private contractors, and this is where this story gets absolutely incredible." He focused on one contractor. "Look, I know this issue is tempting to ignore — it combines two things that people hate thinking about the most: Death and municipal funding," he said. But he tried to make it palatable, roping in Beyoncé, Glenn Close's spleen, and Tracy Morgan. (There's NSFW language.)

All the major players in the intensifying standoff between the U.S. and Iran say they do not want war, usually with a caveat. On Sunday, Saudi Arabia's foreign affairs minister and the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps both reiterated that their countries aren't looking for war but aren't afraid to fight, either. President Trump has similarly said he doesn't want war with Iran, but.

On Sunday afternoon, Trump tweeted: "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!" Trump's threat to obliterate Iran may have been in response to initial reports of a rocket fired into the Green Zone in Iraq — the State Department confirmed Sunday night that a "low-grade rocket" landed harmlessly about a mile from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad — but Matthew Gertz at Media Matters has another theory:

Folks, The president is threatening Iran because of a Fox News segment.

Gertz had more evidence Trump was live-tweeting Fox News, including Trump's tweet attacking his favorite network for hosting Democrat Pete Buttigieg. Still, it's not like Trump has been silent about Iran over the past week. In a Fox News interview broadcast Sunday night, but recorded last week, Trump said he's "not somebody that wants to go in to war, because war hurts economies, war kills people, most importantly." But, he said, "I just don't want them to have nuclear weapons and they can't be threatening us."

"The current tensions are rooted in Trump's decision last year to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers and impose wide-reaching sanctions," The Associated Press reports. "Iran has said it would resume enriching uranium at higher levels if a new nuclear deal is not reached by July 7. That would potentially bring it closer to being able to develop a nuclear weapon, something Iran insists it has never sought."

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, did a Fox News town hall on Sunday, and he took a few moments to criticize the network's own prime-time opinion hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. President Trump didn't tweet about that, but he did criticize host Chris Wallace for noting that the 37-year-old mayor, a war veteran and Rhodes Scholar who speaks several languages, "has a lot of substance" and a "fascinating biography," while never saying the same things about Trump.

....who got them there. Chris Wallace said, “I actually think, whether you like his opinions or not, that Mayor Pete has a lot of substance...fascinating biography.” Gee, he never speaks well of me - I like Mike Wallace better...and Alfred E. Newman will never be President!

Now, if you were an outside journalist, like The Washington Post's Josh Dawsey, you might recap Trump's tweet as: "The president openly tells a news network they are not doing enough to favor him." A Fox News stalwart like Brit Hume had a slightly different angle, but he also found the tweet offensive enough to merit a rare rebuke of Trump.

Say this for Buttigieg. He’s willing to be questioned by Chris Wallace, something you’ve barely done since you’ve been president. Oh, and covering candidates of both parties is part of the job of a news channel. https://t.co/D8yQE2kfYF

Trump, who had his own one-on-one interview air on Fox News Sunday night, was retweeting Hume sticking up for him a few hours later, so no bad blood there. Former Tea Party Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), now a conservative talk show host, tweeted that the whole episode highlights an "under-reported" fact about Trump: "He really doesn't do much. People assume that, as president, he's really busy. He's not. He watches TV, he tweets, he does rallies. About it."

Trump is "way ahead of his advisers and fellow Republicans" on China trade policy, but the opposite is true on Iran, Sherman reports:

When Trump acted on his campaign pledge to pull out of the Obama nuclear deal, he did it without a clear endgame in mind. That policy void has led to an intense internal debate inside the White House over how to handle Iran. On one side is hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton, who, prior to joining the White House, advocated for regime change in Tehran. He is joined by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, another famous Iran hawk. But they are reportedly ahead of the president's thinking. "He thinks Bolton is pushing him into a disaster," a former administration official said. [Vanity Fair]

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and policy Swiss army knife, is reportedly urging caution and talks with Iran. Read more at Vanity Fair.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue said Wednesday night that he is putting together a second round of financial assistance for farmers and ranchers hit by President Trump's trade war with China. Purdue said the farm bailout will total between $15 billion and $20 billion, and include more direct payments and commodity purchases, but "many farmers doubt the scale of that aid package is anywhere near sufficient to make up for a trade spat that has shut them out of a lucrative Chinese market of 1.4 billion consumers," The Wall Street Journal reports.

"Though we are glad that the administration is considering additional assistance," Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, tells the Journal, "such temporary solutions are not sufficient to address the permanent damage the trade war has inflicted on agricultural export markets." China has retaliated against Trump's tariffs by raising tariffs on soybeans, sorghum, pork, and other U.S. agricultural products, plus slowed down purchases by state-owned companies. U.S. farm exports have plummeted and prices are at 10-year lows.

Last year, Congress approved $12 billion in trade war farm aid. So far, only $8.5 billion of that has been paid directly to farmers — and, the New York Daily News reported Thursday, $62 million of the bailout went to a Brazilian pork processing company that doesn't appear to be struggling under the trade war and is owned by two Brazilian brothers who can't leave Brazil because they are being investigated for corruption.

Agricultural areas that voted for Trump are losing patience, as The Late Show touched on Thursday night.

But the anger, despair, and financial hardship are real. "We cannot withstand another year in which our most important foreign market continues to slip away," John Heisdorffer, an Iowa soybean farmer and chairman of the American Soybean Association, tells the Journal. "Our patience is waning, our finances are suffering, and the stress from months of living with the consequences of these tariffs is mounting."

Space cowboys may sing of the pompatus of love, but space pirates will earn you ridicule. At least if you're a U.S. senator, and you're serious.

On Thursday night's All In, MSNBC's Chris Hayes played a clip of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) earnestly pitching President Trump's Space Force as a bulwark against space pirates. "We had a little bit of fun with that moment last night, as did, like, all of the internet," Hayes said. "But that wasn't the reason Sen. Ted Cruz wished me death by imaginary space pirate." At least not directly.

"Cruz had a rough day on Twitter and cable news yesterday, after his 'space pirate' speech went viral," so he hit back at NBC's Chuck Todd and then he went "full space snowflake, complaining to the CEO of Twitter about all the dunking on him," Hayes said. He saw that tweet "and I thought it was the saddest tweet I'd ever seen," Hayes explained, "so I commented 'This is the saddest tweet I've ever seen.' And that is when Sen. Ted Cruz told me, 'May Space Pirates devour your liver.'" Presumably, Cruz was getting in on the joke. But you never know. You can decide for yourself below.

"Intelligence collected by the U.S. government shows Iran's leaders believe the U.S. planned to attack them, prompting preparation by Tehran for possible counterstrikes," The Wall Street Journal reports. The Daily Beastsimilarly says "U.S. intelligence officials assess that Iran's aggressive moves came in response to the administration's own actions."

Several lawmakers concurred. Based on the "very murky" intelligence, it appears "most of the activities that the Iranians are undertaking are in response to our very aggressive posture in the region," Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) told The Daily Beast. Specifically, according to three U.S. government officials, multiple U.S. intelligence agencies believe Tehran has been reacting to President Trump's "aggressive steps over the last two months," including new sanctions and efforts to isolate Iran but especially his decision to designate Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corp a terrorist organization.

The Pentagon opposed that decision, warning "it could lead to retaliatory attacks against U.S. troops by Iranian-backed forces in the Middle East," Politico reported in early April. Trump and his hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, overruled the generals, calling the Pentagon's warnings overblown.

"Israel was one of the main sources of intelligence on alleged Iranian plots against the U.S. and its allies in the region," Israeli journalist Barak Ravid writes in Axios, but Israeli intelligence doesn't see an "imminent risk of attack by Iran or its proxies" against Israeli interests, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his intelligence and military chiefs this week that "Israel would make every effort not to get dragged into the escalation in the Gulf and would not interfere directly in the situation."

"This morning, yet another new Democratic candidate pushed his way into the clown car," Stephen Colbert said on Thursday's Late Show, welcoming New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to the race — kind of. "You hear the hometown crowd warmly receiving that," he joked as the audience groaned. "De Blasio's announcement was met with a resounding: 'Really? Why?'" One poll found that 76 percent of New York City voters didn't want de Blasio to run, and "it's not like de Blasio's popular outside of New York City, either," Colbert said, pointing to a New Hampshire poll in which de Blasio got 0 percent support.

De Blasio's top campaign priority, at least as laid out in his launch video, is putting "working people first" — and Colbert finished his thought: "Except the working people of New York, because I'm going to spend the next two years not becoming president."

In Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel groaned at de Blasio's "Con Don" nickname for President Trump. "He really puts the 'blah' in de Blasio," he said on Kimmel Live. "Maybe he's running for president so he can get away from all the people who hate him in New York. I really don't know what Bill de Blasio is thinking — he has no chance of winning." He compared de Blasio's campaign to "the saddest birthday in town," with props.

But it's not just de Blasio. "At this point, announcing you're running for president is like announcing you're running a 5K," Kimmel said. "Good for you. No one cares. Don't post pictures. There are now 23 Democrats in the race, and unless one of these guys has a dragon we don't know about, I don't know how any of them come out of this alive." Watch him switch to mocking another "beloved New York City politician," Anthony Weiner, below.

On Friday, Taiwan's legislature became the first in Asia to approve legal same-sex marriage. The country's Constitutional Court ruled in May 2017 that prohibiting same-sex marriage violated Taiwan's constitution, and lawmakers had until May 24 to fix the laws accordingly. The legislature considered three bills, and they approved the most progressive one, creating a new class of marriage that confers full legal rights in areas including taxes, insurance, and child custody. It also gives same-sex couples limited adoption rights.

After the 2017 court ruling, Taiwan held several referendums that showed a majority of Taiwanese voters wanted to keep the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. The new law therefore leaves the old civil law regarding marriage untouched and creates a new law for same-sex couples. Conservative lawmakers had wanted to allow "same-sex unions" or "same-sex family relationships."

The immigration blueprint President Trump unveiled Thursday "appears destined for the congressional dustbin, with no clear strategy from the White House to turn it into law and essentially no support from Democrats who control half of Capitol Hill," The Washington Post notes. But White House and GOP officials say that doesn't matter, the Post reports, because the plan is "primarily to showcase the kind of immigration that Trump and Republicans can support ahead of next year's elections."

Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, spent months on the plan, "meeting privately with business groups, religious leaders, and conservatives to find common ground among Republicans on an issue that has long divided the party," The Associated Press says. "Kushner set out to create a proposal that Republicans might be able to rally around, his mission to give the president and his party a clear platform heading into the 2020 elections." So far, the Republican unity has proved elusive.

Conservative immigration hardliners complained that overall immigration levels stay the same — Ann Coulter called the plan a "rube-bait campaign document." More moderate Republicans facing tough re-election fights next year were similarly dismissive. The House and Senate GOP leaders declined to endorse it.

Even inside the White House, aides celebrated Kushner's "close hold" on the project, one senior White House official told the Post, because that means "no one else gets blamed for this." To be fair, there is no "plan," The Toronto Star's Daniel Dale told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Thursday night. "All reporters at the White House received from the White House was four pages of, like, elementary school graphics outlining some basics of what may be to come."

Editor's Note: This article contained a quote critical of Trump's policy incorrectly attributed to Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.); it was his opponent, Mike Johnston, who said the proposal would accomplish nothing but "build Trump’s wall and keep families apart." We apologize for the error.

"There's nothing better for taking your mind off a looming trade war than a looming war war," Stephen Colbert said on Thursday's Late Show. And "we might be headed to one with Iran." He explained the omens: "Rising tensions in the Middle East, American military moved to the region based on questionable intelligence — the worst Throwback Thursday ever. And I'm not the only one who feels this way — so does Donald Trump! ... In this case, Trump is absolutely right here — and if anyone knows how not to go to war, it's Donald Trump."

Except that Trump hired John Bolton to run his national security policy. "Bolton has advocated regime change in Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran — it's all promoting his business, Quagmires 'R' Us," Colbert joked. "So who's going to win this argument, the president or his national security adviser?" He was not reassured by Trump's answer.

With the possibility of war with Iran, the Defense Department really, actually sent Kiss frontman Gene Simmons out to meet the press at the Pentagon podium, and then Simmons headed to meet with Trump in the Oval Office. Colbert arched an eyebrow: "Wow, an alleged sexual harasser who wears scary clown makeup at the White House, and Gene Simmons visited?"

"Trump was in the Rose Garden this afternoon pushing a brand new immigration plan," Colbert said. "It's slightly more nuanced than his previous strategy, 'Wall!' The new plan comes courtesy of professional daughter-husband Jared Kushner," and it favors "merit-based" immigration over family ties. "Really?" Colbert asked. "Jared Kushner is really calling for an end to giving people special treatment because of their relatives? You don't want to rethink that?"

It hardly matters. "Both Democrats and Republicans hate this plan," Colbert said, and he had a visual demonstration of what Politico called "Jared's big whiff." Watch below.

There are still some elected Democratic officials in the U.S. who are not running for president, but second-term New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio isn't among them anymore. De Blasio jumped in the race Thursday morning, aiming to explain why he is joining the almost comically overcrowded Democratic primary field in a 3-minute launch video.

De Blasio is running on the slogan "Working People First," arguing that there is plenty of money in America but it's in the wrong hands. The 6-foot-5 mayor also says he can beat President Trump because he's beat him in court and understands how to take on a New York "bully." On Monday, de Blasio stood outside Trump Tower and announced that eight Trump Organization buildings would owe New York City $2.1 million a year if the Trumps don't make their towers more energy-efficient.

A 2-year-old Guatemalan boy who crossed into the U.S. with his mother in early April died Tuesday night at a hospital in El Paso, The Washington Post reports, citing a Guatemalan consul and another person. The boy is the fourth minor known to have died after being apprehended at the U.S. border, all of them from Guatemala; two children died in December and a 16-year-old unaccompanied minor died April 30 after suffering a severe brain infection following more than a week in U.S. custody.

Tekandi Paniagua, the consul for Guatemala in Del Rio, Texas, told The Associated Press that the 2-year-old developed a high fever and had difficulty breathing after a few days in Customs and Border Protection custody, and he then spent about a month at a children's hospital, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia.

A CBP official familiar with the case told the Post that the boy and his mother were picked up April 3 near a border bridge in El Paso, the mother alerted officials that the child was sick on April 6, he was hospitalized, and on April 8, federal officials formally released the family from custody with a "notice to appear" in immigration court, leaving it unclear if the boy was technically in CBP custody when he died. An official told the Post that CBP would inform Congress of the death within 24 hours, as required for deaths in custody.

A record number of migrant families, mostly from Central America, have been crossing the border and turning themselves in, requesting asylum. The numbers have overwhelmed U.S. border officials, and hundreds of migrants have been taken to the hospital, some with conditions they arrived with. Migrant advocates have questioned the Border Patrol's ability to care for the thousands of families in federal custody.

President Trump's lawyers asked a federal judge Tuesday to block a House subpoena for Trump's financial documents, on the grounds that Congress has essentially no authority to investigate the president for anything. "Wow, that's a big swing," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. "Right now, Nixon's ghost is going, 'What the hell? Can I have a redo?'"

"One person who is cooperating with Congress," Colbert said, is Donald Trump Jr. "After weeks of ignoring their subpoena, last night Junior struck a deal for a 'limited' interview" with the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee. "To be fair, every meeting with Don Jr. involves limited intelligence," he joked. But the tactic of scaling back the interview by first taking an extreme position is straight out of his father's playbook, Colbert added, acting out an imaginary negotiation between Trump and Don Jr.

Yes, "DJTJ has reached a deal to appear before the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee to try and convince them he doesn't know anything," Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live. "I don't know, for him, how hard can that be?" Under the deal, "Don Jr. will testify for up to four hours and he can only be asked questions on five or six topics," Kimmel said, listing some possibilities, real and fake. "Why does everything this family does turn into a game show? Everything." Watch below.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers warned President Trump on Wednesday "to avoid plunging the United States into another Iraq-like war in the Middle East, demanding more information about vague warnings that Iran might be planning attacks on U.S. personnel and facilities in the region," Politico reports. Trump himself is "frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars," The Washington Post adds.

America's European allies are unconvinced by the Trump administration's warnings about new, credible threats from Iran. And the Pentagon uniformly backs deterrence over military conflict with Iran, the Post reports.

But at least one member of Congress appears to believe the warnings from Trump's top Iran hawks, National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and it's former Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). In a classified briefing Wednesday, Cheney "argued that the intelligence warranted an escalation against Iran," the Post reports, citing a person with knowledge of the briefing. "In response, Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton (Mass.) accused her of exaggerating the threat in what the person described as a 'very heated exchange.'"

A Cheney spokesman told the Post that the congresswoman "will never comment on classified briefings and believes that any member or staffer who does puts the security of the nation at risk," and a Moulton representative declined to comment on the exchange. Moulton, a Iraq War vet who is running for president, did comment on the overall situation, though, saying "this is chicken hawks trying to drag us into a war with Iran just like they did 15 years ago in Iraq." One of the chief proponents of invading Iraq, of course, was Dick Cheney.

Alabama's near-complete abortion ban was sponsored in the State Senate by Clyde Chambliss, a Republican lawmaker who said he's "not smart enough to be pregnant" and admitted that fertilized eggs in labs aren't banned in his "fetal personhood" bill because they're "not in a woman. She's not pregnant." Chambliss "really is dumb," Samantha Bee said on Wednesday's Full Frontal, soon after Alabama's female governor signed his bill into law, but Alabama isn't the only state trying to effectively ban abortion.

"There have been more six-week abortion bill than Godfather movies, so I guess men really don't love anything more than policing women's bodies," Bee said. "The one thing all these bills have in common is that the people writing them have no f---ing idea how the internal reproductive system works. That's why I'm going to do something that should have been done decades ago — I'm going to teach sex ed to senators."

And while some of Bee's class is NSFW, she really does teach. Her lessons include everything from the helpful "We don't know we're pregnant the moment it happens" to the very specific: "You can't reimplant an ectopic pregnancy, you old, tragic Kenneth from 30 Rock." There's "Miscarriage is incredibly common" and the useful "Birth control and morning-after pills aren't abortion" — "Neither of them causes abortions; banning them sure does, though," she added.

But there's one lesson "every single legislator should learn before writing abortion laws," even those on the left, Bee said: "What even is an abortion?" and as importantly, what isn't an abortion, specifically anything that happens when a baby is full-term. "That would be homicide," she said. "Look, there are plenty of crazy positions on the left — for example, I believe the term 'manatee' is too gendered — but no one is advocating for legalizing baby-murder." Watch below, especially if you're a senator.

"Right off the bat, I just want to thank the news cycle, because it's a rare treat for a late-night comedian when the subject of your comedy is legislation restricting abortion," Stephen Colbert joked darkly on Wednesday's Late Show. "But that's the big story, so here we go!"

"Yesterday, Alabama lawmakers passed a bill banning nearly all abortions," he began. "That is either an overreach by the Alabama GOP or some pretty intense viral marketing for the new season of Handmaid's Tale. I don't get it, if a TV show has to become reality, why can't it be Star Trek so they can beam me off this planet?" The bill would jail doctors for up to 99 years, and it makes no exception for victims of rape or incest "because the whole point of this law is to establish that a fetus is a person with rights," Colbert said. "Now, that is a bold interpretation of human development, but on the plus side, apparently pregnant women get to vote twice now."

Alabama's female Republican governor signed the nation's most restrictive abortion law on Wednesday, but all 25 votes in favor in the Alabama Senate came from Republican men, Colbert said, making an off-color but on-topic joke about those men. People have lots of different views on abortion, he noted, but the backers of this bill admit it's a cynical overreach to get the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, which they openly speculate is possible now because of President Trump's two high court appointees and — as Alabama Pro-Life Coalition head Eric Johnston said — one justice's questionable health. "So he's pro-life, unless it's Ruth Bader Ginsburg," Colbert said. "Quick, Justice Ginsburg, get pregnant! It's your only chance."

At Late Night, Amber Ruffin took a literal approach to not being able to control her own body, joined by Jenny Hagel and Ally Hord. Watch below.

President Trump pardoned Conrad Black, a 74-year-old Canadian-born British former media baron who is a longtime friend and onetime business partner, on Wednesday. In a statement, the White House suggested Black's 2007 conviction for fraud and obstruction of justice, tied to an alleged scheme to swindle millions from investors, was overly harsh. Black spent more than three years in prison, getting out in 2012, and was then deported to Canada and barred from entering the U.S. for 30 years.

The White House, justifying the pardon, cited "broad support from many high-profile individuals who have vigorously vouched for his exceptional character," naming Henry Kissinger, Rush Limbaugh, the late William F. Buckley Jr., and Elton John. The statement also noted that Black is "the author of several notable biographies," but didn't mention the glowing book Black published about Trump last year.

In the book, Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other, Black wrote that Trump is "a good deal more ethical and honest than many other businessmen and corporate directors I have known." When the book came out, Black denied speculation that he was angling for a pardon. In 2015, Trump tweeted his thanks to Black for a previous bit of praise in print: "As one of the truly great intellects & my friend, I won't forget!!"

Black once controlled Hollinger International, a media empire that owned the Chicago Sun-Times, Canada's National Post, Britain's Daily Telegraph,The Jerusalem Post, and other newspapers. Trump predicted that Black would bounce back from his legal woes in 2004. "In 1990 or 1991, when I owed billions of dollars, some people shied away from me," Trump told Vanity Fair. "And now everyone is kissing my a-- and begging me to sit at their right-hand side at the table. Conrad is a tremendously strong man who will overcome these obstacles in the end. He will prevail." And he did, with a little help from his friends.